


And All Our Yesterdays

by noonegoodquality



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - what if, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Past Ronnie Raymond/Caitlin Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 18:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13665216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noonegoodquality/pseuds/noonegoodquality
Summary: Let’s say that in this universe Killer Frost isn’t evil. Let’s say that in this universe Caitlin isn’t scared of her own power.Or, an au in which Caitlin isn't Killer frost. Instead, she's recovering from trauma and loss.





	And All Our Yesterdays

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DragonHawthorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonHawthorn/gifts).



> This was a prompt given to me by my sister last year which I've been working on slowly but it's her birthday today and it's finished finally so I'm posting it for her now. Please be wary of my terrible use of cannon.  
> Happy birthday you nerd.  
> Potential tw: descriptions of a panic attack
> 
> edit: if you think this fic looks familiar it probably does. I changed the name (from The Winter of Our Discontent) because I didn't like it but was in a rush to post and couldn't think of anything better at the time.

_"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,_

_Creeps in this petty pace from day to day_

_To the last syllable of recorded time,_

_And all our yesterdays have lighted fools_

_The way to dusty death."_

\- William Shakespeare, Macbeth

 

Let’s say that in this universe Killer Frost isn’t evil. Let’s say that in this universe Caitlin isn’t scared of her own power. Let’s say that here a woman having power doesn’t make her evil.

Maybe Caitlin comes with the others when they visit Earth 2. And she sees what she could be instead of hearing about it from Cisco.

But Caitlin isn’t scared of the other her. No. She _hates_ her, she hates that that is something she could become, something that she would let herself become. But she isn’t scared of becoming Killer Frost. No. Caitlin here isn’t scared of her power, isn’t scared of who she is. Here she’s still angry, but she’s angry at Killer Frost not at the power she has.

So when she starts getting her powers she doesn’t try to suppress them, instead she learns to control them. In this universe Caitlin isn’t controlled by her fear and her power. In this universe she controls them. She still doesn’t tell team flash though. Because even if Caitlin isn’t scared that doesn’t mean that the others aren’t.

And Cisco is still scared of Killer Frost. Because it was never her power that scared him, it was always about Caitlin, and her being safe and being happy. And being not evil. And it was about their friendship too, because Cisco’s got issues okay? And he doesn’t want to lose her.

But it comes out, inevitably, and when it does it’s hectic and Cisco’s looking at her like he’s not seeing her he’s seeing someone else (another her). And Barry, Barry mostly just looks hurt that she didn’t tell him.

But afterwards they talk about it, Cisco and her. She listens to what he says. And then Cisco listens to her when she explains. So she does, she explains that it doesn’t change who she is and she tells him firmly that she isn’t the same person as Killer Frost, will never be. Could never be.

But he can’t shake his fears entirely. Caitlin understands why he’s scared and she tries not to blame him for it, but at the same time it’s suffocating.

Barry isn’t scared of her though. When he learns that she has been practicing and is learning to control her powers he beams at her and talks about how great it will be to have a friend on the field fighting with him. And that’s suffocating too, because Caitlin doesn’t know if she’s ready to be a superhero. Doesn’t know if she’ll ever be ready. Not when she thinks of Ronnie and a black hole and a wedding ring with a lost match that she still wears. It makes her stomach clench and her breath catch and a sharp buzzing panic well up inside her.

She’s coming to terms with Ronnie’s death. It still hurts, of course it does. But the wound that once felt raw and valuable is starting to scab over, flesh knitting back together. She has dinner with Clarissa sometimes. Her husband has gone off on some time traveling adventure and Caitlin’s ashamed to admit it but she’s glad she doesn’t have to be around him because when she is she sees the only person who knew Ronnie better than she did, who loved him like she did and it hurts to see her grief reflected in his face. But the dinners with Clarisse help sometimes. Other times it makes everything hurt more and worse, but those times are becoming less frequent.

None of this changes the fact that every time Barry talks about training and Cisco tentatively asks about a costume and throws around ideas for names she wants to cry or scream or throw up.

She wants- She’s not sure what she wants but she knows she wants other people to stop deciding who she is for her.

And then they team up with Captain Cold and his crew and she realizes that not everyone is determined to choose for her.

It’s some alien invasion they’re stopping. Not worrying enough to call the Arrow and his friends or Firestorm and the other time travellers again. But still threatening enough that Snart decides to take offence to aliens threatening _his_ city. Still threatening enough that the others expect her to join in and she doesn’t know how to tell them she can’t.

In the aftermath Snart is sharing quips with Barry, drawling on about some misadventure from when he and Rory ran with the time travellers, while Rory watches on looking amused. And Caitlin is wondering if she can slip away until she stops feeling like her heart is being squeezed so tightly it will be squashed beyond recognition, when Lisa Snart walks up to her.

“Listen Doctor,” She says. “If being a hero’s not your thing you could always join us. My brother’s been thinking about expanding his crew, wants to call us the Rouges.”

“Are you really trying to recruit me to a super villain team?” Caitlin asks her.

“I’m just saying.” She says. “If you want a change of pace we could always do with an ice meta.” She smirks, and it’s downright wicked. “I’m sure Lenny could handle the competition.”

“I’m not a criminal.” Caitlin tells her frowning. But the vise around her heart is loosening. Not with the idea of being a criminal. Because Caitlin may not know what she wants but she doesn’t want that. But it’s the first time someone hasn’t acted as though the conclusion of her becoming a hero is foregone. And the weight that lifts off her is so great she almost feels dizzy.

Lisa just smiles at her.

“Well the offer’s open Doctor.”

She should talk to Barry and Cisco about her issues. She knows she should. But she doesn’t actually want to. She tells herself: Barry’s having a bad day I don’t want to make it worse by bringing it up. She tells herself: Cisco’s getting so excited about making me an outfit I’ll wait to break the bad news later. She tells herself: Joe and Iris are here today I can’t bring it up around them.

It stops being manageable the first time she goes on a patrol with Barry.

She makes it back to STAR labs before she shatters but only barely. She’s shaking by the time they get back so badly she doesn’t know how Barry hasn’t noticed. She sinks to the floor behind a locked door, a bathroom not that she notices, as soon as she can. Her breath is loud in her ears but her racing heartbeat is louder. She doesn’t realize she’s crying until she touches her face and dislodges frozen tears.

She sits there for a long time not moving, just watching as frost creeps across the bathroom mirror. She doesn’t try to move and she isn’t sure she could if she tried. She feels like a passenger in her own body. And all she can think is “Ronnie” and “Ronnie!” and “Ronnie’s dead” and “This is how he died”.

Caitlin doesn’t sit there for hours. But she would have if Cisco hadn’t found her.

There’s a knock on the door, and then a pause, and then. “Caitlin?” Cisco calls. “What’s wrong? I know you’re in there, there’s ice creeping out into the hall.”

She doesn’t let him in because she can’t. She can’t get up and let him see her like this because then he’ll _know_. Or she just doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to because if she does he’ll be worried and he’ll want to talk about it and it’ll be real or at least realer. And anyway her body doesn’t seem to want to move and she can’t tell if she is trying to move but she can’t or she just doesn’t want to move.

In the end Barry has to phase through the wall and talk her though it. It helps, listening to his voice. Steady and slow and confident for once. But it also doesn’t because he’s there and he can see her. And she’s being stupid and pathetic and childish and she doesn’t want him to see. She doesn’t want anyone to see.

All the whole thing really means, hours and days later when her tears have dried and the ice has melted leaving her feeling quiet and drained. Is that she does have to talk to Cisco and Barry about it.

They treat her like glass for days Barry and Cisco, but also Joe and everyone who revolves in the periphery of team flash’s actions. Right up until she snaps and yells at them. Then Iris steal away her to stay at iris’s apartment and binge Brooklyn Nine Nine.

Eventually though things must return to as close to normal as team flash ever gets. Right up until they are being called in to help Oliver and his team. As usual things go well right up until they don’t. Then Caitlin and Cisco are stepping through a portal to Oliver fighting with a broken arm and Barry unconscious and bleeding.

When they gets back Cisco pulls her aside as soon as Barry and Oliver are safely recovering.

“Are you doing alright Caitlin?” He asks.

“What?” She blinks, “I’m fine Cisco; I didn’t get hit.”

He shakes his head. “No I mean, how are you _feeling_?”

“Oh.” She says. “Oh.” Then she thinks about it for a moment, because she’d promised she’d try to be more aware of her limits. “Fine.” She says at last.

Cisco looks a bit like a kicked puppy. “You don’t have to say that Cait. I thought we’d agreed.”

“But I am Cisco. I feel fine.”

“Really?” Caitlin would be offended by Cisco’s clear incredulity if she hadn’t almost turned STAR Labs into a glacier the last time she’d been in the field.

But she is fine, she hadn’t been thinking about Ronnie when she’d stepped out of Cisco’s portal and between Barry’s prone body and an overpowered meta. Hadn’t been thinking about the twisting in her gut, just about getting her friends to safety.

She smiles.

A few weeks later Caitlin finds Lisa Snart waiting outside STAR labs, leaning against Caitlin’s car. She’s wearing a leather jacket, and a smile like a deadly promise. She offers Caitlin a part in dangerous heist or tickets to a movie.

Caitlin says no to the latter but accepts the former. And as she invites a beautiful and deadly woman in to her car she thinks about Ronnie and about grieving and about living your own life. And she thinks he wouldn’t begrudge her this.

She still doesn’t want to be a hero. She never will here. It’s not something she thinks she could do every day, not the way Barry does. But there’s a difference between fighting every minute of your life and doing everything she can to keep her friends safe and the latter’s not something she’ll ever stop doing.

And if the people she fights to protect, whether from the other side of a comm with research and crazy ideas in front of her and Cisco next to her or between their wounded bodies and the monster of the week with ice in her hands but never in her heart, if those people have expanded to include a sometimes criminal sometimes engineer with a smile like a knife and golden laughter, well the only thing that changes is how much Cisco teases her. And that, she can handle.

**Author's Note:**

> I’d like to apologise both for my inability to stick to one thought and follow it through without going on at least three different tangents and for my use of cannon, my knowledge of which ends part way through season 3 and even before that I ended up ignoring most of what I do know.


End file.
